Today is January 20, 2025, a very sad day for America, in my estimable opinion. Today marked the inauguration of a convicted felon, sexual predator, attempted destroyer of democracy to the highest pillars of power, and we can only thank the American people for that! To mark this profoundly sad occasion, I refused to watch the proceedings from the very first moment the mainstream press aired the putrid spectacle. How could anyone expect anything good to come from a second Chump administration? The only good thing that might result from this awful ascendancy to the heights of power could be a new American revolution, according to Robert Reich who has written an incisive online article for AlterNet entitled “How Trump’s second regime could spark a new American revolution.”

Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, from 1993 to 1997, and a member of President Obama’s economic transition advisory board, indicates that he shares many Americans’ fears about what’s to come. However, he says he remains hopeful about the future of this country.

Her goes on to write how Dump “hoodwinked average working Americans into believing he’s on their side and convinced enough voters that Kamala Harris and Democrats were on the side of cultural elites (the ‘deep state,’ ‘woke’ism, ‘coastal elites,’ and so on).

The former labor secretary feels that Chump’s hoax will fail, “given the oligarchy’s conspicuous takeover of America under Trump II.”

This oligarchy was obscenely visible during the inauguration when the three richest individuals in America sat side by side by the would-be autocrat – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Reich calls all three out for owning powerful media companies that have either boosted Chump’s lies or refrained from telling the truth about him.

It was Musk who dumped a quarter of a billion dollars into getting his bro, the Orange Turd, elected, in return for which Drumpf has authorized him, along with billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, to target for elimination programs Americans depend on – the very programs his loyal supporters rely on.

This flagrant display of obscene wealth, Reich believes, will prompt Americans to revolt against unaccountable power and wealth, just like our forefathers did during the American Revolution that formed this nation.

Reich sees this “revolution” starting in “our communities when we protect the most vulnerable from the cruelties of the Trump regime, ensure that hardworking families aren’t torn apart, protect transgender and LGBTQ+ people, and help guard the safety of Trump’s political enemies.”

The former labor secretary sees a backlash coming in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, “when Americans elect true leaders who care about working people and the common good.”

At that time, Americans will demand fundamental reforms: “getting big money out of politics, taxing huge wealth, busting up or regulating giant corporations, making huge social media platforms accountable to the public rather than to a handful of multibillionaires.” I just think most Americans will be disgusted by these individuals and will clamor for systemic change.

I just hope Reich’s words of aspiration here are not just another pipe dream. I’m afraid many of my friends have decided to tune out the sickening reality of a second Dump regime by not getting engaged in the news. Hell, that’s what I myself have decided to do, as I’ve mentioned earlier.

But now is the time to disclose something I have done to register my disappointment in the 2024 election and that is forming a group of likeminded individuals to gather in a safe setting where the election could be discussed as well as peoples’ feelings about it and to also discuss ways to fight some of Dump’s illiberal policies that could be passed during his second term. Thus I registered space with something called meetup.com where I billed myself as an organizer of the “anti-Trump patriots” a little over a week or so ago and decided to schedule an anti-inauguration gathering for today, at 1, at a restaurant in Rego Park. Who knew that a small snow storm was forecasted for Sunday, January 19? Even though I registered this name with the organization, I had second thoughts about it and I consulted my Astoria friend “Seth” who did suggest I rename it as something less inflammatory, so I came up with “Defenders of Democracy,” which could be misconstrued as a right-wing group if you think of it. So I put that name down on my message board and still the old name came up, so I couldn’t scrub the original name.

Following my call to arms, so to speak, I checked into the website to see if anyone took the bait and signed up for this first event. Up to today, I had no interested members. Thus I had no intention of even going to the eatery since I never called earlier to ask the restaurant to make space available for us, which is what I would have done if I knew people were going to attend. So I went out to breakfast as usual after brushing off the snow from our Nissan Altima parked on the street.

You can imagine my amazement when I returned home after 12 or so and I discovered that one person indicated interest in the group. But this was close to 12:30 and I don’t think he expected me or anyone to show up, and he never DMed me. In just about ten minutes, the number of interested parties went up one, to two. However, I was still home, so I felt it was incumbent upon me to write some sort of message declaring the meeting to be canceled because of weather concerns. I did this and have yet to hear from anyone.

So that’s where I’m at with this nascent project of mine. I don’t know how it will proceed. But I’ll certainly let you know if something good happens. Maybe it will just take time for people to see the description of the group and to decide to get involved. Again, maybe people are just fucking exhausted.

Maybe the words of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. who spoke stirringly on the occasion of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, that sparked the civil rights movement in this country will now spur those angry over things being done in a second Dump regime to action. Here is a section from that speech:

“And, you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.”

Yes, there does come a time.

And so it went!